Details on HU coach Maynor's movie roles

By Dave Fairbank

New Hampton University football coach Connell Maynor is a colorful character with a successful track record and a thousand stories. Some of the best are from his movie extra work on “Any Given Sunday” and “Remember the Titans.”

Maynor’s movie work was mentioned in the lengthy profile in Sunday’s newspaper and on the website, but details and quotes were omitted for reasons of space and story flow.

Maynor played quarterback for the Orlando Predators of the Arena League in 1999 when teammate and fellow quarterback Pat O’Hara told him of a pro football movie being cast in south Florida: the big-budget flick by famed director Oliver Stone, “Any Given Sunday.”

O’Hara previously worked on “The Waterboy,” and the same guy casting for football players from the Adam Sandler movie needed extras for Stone’s movie.

The football casting guy told O’Hara that they needed a mobile quarterback for the football scenes involving Jamie Foxx. O’Hara recommended Maynor, who was invited to come to Miami for casting.

Maynor was one of 25 quarterbacks auditioning for two spots: Foxx’s stand-in, and a backup in case the stand-in got hurt.

“You know me,” Maynor said. “When I went down there, I knew I was going to get this part. I knew nobody had the accuracy I had and wasn’t as mobile as I was. I knew when I went down there I was going to get the gig.”

One of the other tryout quarterbacks seemed more assured than most, Maynor said. He later learned that it was former University of Miami quarterback Ryan Clement, one of the school’s all-time passing leaders.

“We did the drills and did what we did,” Maynor said, “and it was a no-brainer that I was better than him. I threw the ball better than him, I was faster than he was, I was more mobile than he was. He just played at Miami and I played at (North Carolina) A&T.”

Maynor got the job as Foxx’s stand-in and Clemens was his backup.

“But he didn’t get any snaps,” Maynor said, “because I don’t get hurt.”

Maynor said that most of the football plays were filmed twice, one with stars such as Foxx and Dennis Quaid doing close-ups, and the second from a distance with stand-ins throwing and running and tackling.

Maynor got his helmet knocked off and absorbed a bunch of licks for cinematic effect. Every short, medium and deep throw in the movie, from distant and overhead camera angles, was from him.

Maynor claimed that none of the football plays — even deep balls and special dramatic plays — required more than three takes.

“Oliver Stone was like, I love you, because you’re saving me money,” Maynor said. “We don’t have to do all these takes. Those plays were the ones that were supposed to be 15-16 takes, but we never took more than three.”

Former Winston-Salem State linebacker Carlos Fields, who played four years for Maynor and watched him run and throw on the practice fields, said if you watch the movie closely, you can tell it’s Maynor by his throwing motion and movement.

Maynor said the only stunt he didn’t perform was a play in which Foxx gets hit and does a full flip and lands on his head and back.

“I’m not landing on my neck and breaking my freakin’ neck for some money,” Maynor said. “I’m not going to be paralyzed. Can’t play no golf, can’t play no basketball, can’t throw the football around. I said, no, I’m not doing that. So they put somebody else in there to do the flip. I won’t take credit for that, even though I could. Nobody would know, but I didn’t do it, so I can’t take credit for that.”

Maynor said that Stone and all of the movie’s stars, Foxx, Quaid, Al Pacino, Cameron Diaz, and football Hall of Famers Lawrence Taylor and Jim Brown, were down-to-earth and cool to hang out with. He and Pacino often played catch on the field during breaks and between takes. He and Foxx spoke all the time on the set. Maynor has photos taken with Pacino and Foxx on his office desk at Hampton U.

Maynor’s work on “Any Given Sunday” got him work on “Remember the Titans,” the movie about T.C. Williams’ 1971 Virginia state championship team in the first year of public school integration, starring Denzel Washington and Will Patton.

Maynor did the football stunts for young actor Craig Kirkwood’s character, Jerry “Rev” Harris. He enjoyed that movie set, as well, and said that Washington, in particular, was very cool. He can’t say the same for some of the movie’s younger stars.

“Those guys,” he said, “thought they were the people from ‘Any Given Sunday.’”